Field of the Invention
This application claims the benefit of priority to Japanese Patent Application No. 2015-109324, filed on May 29, 2015, the disclosures of all of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entities.
The present invention relates to a heat exchanger having a plurality of refrigerant paths.
Description of the Related Arts
In recent years, problems such as energy exhaustion and global warning have been drawing attention and air conditioners and refrigerators are desired to have a highly efficient refrigeration cycle. A heat exchanger as one of the structure elements for a refrigeration cycle has much influence on refrigeration cycle performance and has been improved for higher performance. Especially, in recent years, it has been known that performance improvement for a low load greatly contributes to annual saving energy, to encourage new techniques to be developed for that. Since a refrigerant does not flow much for a low load, a liquefied refrigerant in a condenser having multiple paths is influenced by gravity to make the refrigerant flow less easily in a lower path than in an upper path, causing performance degradation. For example, in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2003-130496, a heat exchanger having only two paths is used as a condenser to have a structure, in which a liquid refrigerant does not stagnate in a lower part of the heat exchanger, for improving performance.